Catching Pansy
by itabitaboo
Summary: Long after the demise of Voldemort, Harry runs into an old classmate. Things are vastly different from when they attended Hogwarts though, and the two find themselves wrapped up in each other. Love leads to marriage, which leads to a beautiful baby. But what happens when Pansy finds another love from her Hogwarts days sparking in her heart?


**Author Note:** This one-shot is an addition to 'The Fan-Made Potter Family Challenge' (prompted by Corelle Gindals), which is in the 'Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges' forum. The topic is Harry's marriage to Pansy and their firstborn. It became very complex in my head and ended up focusing more on the marriage aspect, or really the complexity of their relationship. Their firstborn is certainly integrated and is a very important aspect, as it's their firstborn that sort of sparks the conflict of the story and brings in the aspect of Malfoy. I don't want it to seem like a story about Malfoy and Pansy, though, because it _so_ is not. It's a story about Pansy mostly and how she struggles to be the wife and mother she desires to be, but also about Harry and what I believe to be part of the essence of his character, which is the ability to spark extraordinary things in ordinary people. In any case, read and hopefully enjoy ^^

**Disclaimer:** I would probably die of joy if I owned Harry Potter or even a sliver of it. Alas, I do not. I can only fantasize.

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**Catching Pansy**

My thumb brushes reverently over the familiar face of an old friend. It's been years since I've last seen that face in person. Hell, it's been years since I've seen anyone from those days in person. I can't even remember when exactly it was that we all parted ways. Sixth year? Seventh? After the war? I don't know. I couldn't tell you what any of them are up to anymore, who they married or what jobs they're working. I just remember waking up one day and realizing that my life was not what it had once been. I was in a foreign world. I _am_ in a foreign world. I'm like a snake, accustomed to the close comfort of her burrowed walls, who's trapped in a Griffin's den. While I physically fit into my surroundings, I don't actually belong. I'm a Slytherin stuck in a Gryffindor's common room. The colors, the shapes, the faces... they're all wrong.

But that's silly, isn't it? I'm not a kid at Hogwarts anymore and this isn't a common room. This is my home, my life, the life I chose. And I suppose I chose to let those people go too. This one face though, the one in the photo I return to every evening when my husband is deep in his sleep, it's the only face that's ever caused me any true pain to leave behind.

I long to know the life he now leads, to know the people he works with every day.

The skin of his face is pale and beautiful. There are slight scars, I'm sure, beneath his clothes, but I know the expanse of his body to be smooth and flawless nonetheless. Never once was I able to truly indulge in him, but I caught enough glances in my time at his side to imagine what would be waiting beneath his dark, always so dark, clothes—a glimpse of skin as his shirt ruffled at the hip and jutted up untidily on one of his bad days, more patches of leg than I'd ever seen when I caught him in an undershirt and shorts after a shower, a sliver of the nape of his neck as he adjusted his collar and tie to sharpen himself up. It was never anything truly satisfying, no, but it was enough for me to imagine the rest of those secret regions that I was never lucky enough to freely explore.

I long to know who he's spending his time with, who he lets run fingers through his hair.

I know the exact hue and density and texture of the feathery locks shining in the photograph that holds me hostage. It's thin hair, thin enough that just a slight breeze could easily tousle it, and it always seems to settle in a manner just peculiar enough for it to need fixing. My heart used to pump so wildly that the blood rushed to my head in a momentarily dizzying frenzy each time I reached out to smooth his hair for him, an act he had grown accustomed to with time. I know it's soft, so soft that even the finest of silks seems like barbed wire in comparison, and it's a blond so bright that even the sun is put to shame. It frames his face at just the perfect angles. I'm sure not even his barber would notice, but it always seems to fall in the most mysteriously pleasing way. His nose is straight and perfectly sized, his jaw feminine and, yet, so fit for a man's face.

It's not that ethereal beauty that keeps me coming back day after day though. No, it's his eyes. They're a grayish blue, the silvery color of a midnight moon casting its soft glow against the glassy expanse of an ocean. The pale light and deep blues meld into a hue that's not quite either color and, yet, so completely both. They could be the eyes of a winter beast, icy and cold and entirely impenetrable. Or they could be the petals of a blue hydrangea in early bloom, soft and sweet and gently entrancing. They could express any emotion, every emotion, or absolutely nothing at all. He'd mastered that art, sealing the gateway to his soul so tight that even a mind-reader would be left guessing at what's on his mind. But he's not perfect, perfect to me as he may seem. I honed the gift of decoding him. Sure, there were a few that could decipher the little nuances he would try to hide, like Crabbe and Goyle. I wasn't in such a low category of sidekick though. I could understand what he refused to divulge, what even he himself could not always understand.

He was always the brooding type, always had some struggle to face, some war being waged within. Even in those day to day moods, his eyes were captivating to me. I would lose myself so easily in whatever emotions he felt as I tried to feel them too, trying to connect with him on a deeper level. On this day in this photo, though, his eyes are bright and inviting. His head tilts slightly to the right and his lips curl into a tiny, almost imperceptible, one-sided smirk in a never-ending loop. The way those eyes seem to sparkle causes my lips to part just so, enough for a trembling sigh that I don't try hard enough to swallow to slip past. The exact reason for his mood in this photo escapes me, but that doesn't really matter anyway. In the end, I'm just glad that such a photo even exists for me to hold on to. Or perhaps I'm not glad at all. Perhaps I'm tortured by this. In any case, this is the way I want to remember him, with a peace engulfing him and settling his normally so tumultuous eyes.

I'm used to these emotions racing through me in a flurry. I've grown so accustomed to feeling them over the years that they've become more like an instantaneous thought than an actual experience anymore. Today, though, they linger. They linger and they burn holes in my chest and throat as they claw their way to freedom. It's about time, I think, that they demand attention again. After all, I loved him, and the man I love now can never compare.

I shouldn't say that! My husband is sweet and attentive and gentle in every way. He has taken care of my every need since we became a couple. There was a time back at Hogwarts when we couldn't have been more polar opposites, but I was a Slytherin and he was a Gryffindor. That was to be expected. It took a few years' time for us to find each other in the fray of the real world, but we did and he has been like a knight in shining armor since that moment for me. How can I be so ungrateful?

I'm married to _the_ Harry Potter, the creator of the new world where Voldemort is finally eradicated. I'm the one woman who managed to strike the fancy of the boy who lived. Not a single witch or wizard on this earth doesn't know him. I'm sure he went unnoticed a few times when he was younger, so long as he could obscure his scar, but his face is a well-known icon in every wizarding home these days. I mean, he's the one who came back from _death_ and destroyed _Voldemort_. Beyond that fame though, he's the most genuine person I have ever known. Where is my struggle to love him?

When we met, one look into his eyes told me that he was a broken man. I wondered what he had lost, what he was searching for, who he had become. The same look must have been present in my eyes too, the look of a wanderer chasing home. I don't think we ever intended to fall in love. I think we just intended to forget what we had lost, love being among the many things we each truly believed we'd never find again. Somehow, though, it cemented itself between us and became the foundation on which we built our lives. Time started to slip by and we realized that we were spending more and more time together, doing things that didn't involve a bed and a simple satiation of basic desires. Every day I would wake up feeling more invigorated than the last. I was so positive that this love would last that I began to forget what I had ever missed in life before him.

I learned to love the new people surrounding me, people I had once hated. Or was I only ever just pretending to hate them? Because I started to realize that Ron Weasley is actually a very amusing guy—in fact, his entire family is a joy to be around—and Hermione knows some pretty valuable things. At first, I was truly afraid that they wouldn't accept me without disdain because of our previous rivalry from our days in Hogwarts. They seemed willing to give me a try though, as long as Harry was so willing, and the deeper reasons for why became clearer to me the longer I was around.

I learned through private conversation that Harry had fallen into an isolated pit after the war. With that information at hand, I was able to glean how much of an impact I'd had on him because he was most certainly not the man his loved ones had described him to be before me. I don't know why it was me, but I pulled him from the same sort of despair he'd pulled me from and gave him a renewed motivation for life. I guess seeing that process unfold for a dear friend right before your eyes would push anyone to accept the catalyst, no matter who they might be.

In short, these people who were "his" became mine too. They became friends to me and, eventually, irreplaceable pieces of my life. They filled the empty space in my heart and I fell in love with them. I fell in love with the feeling of fulfillment. Now, when I look into Harry's eyes, there's not a single splinter out of place. He is settled. He must have sacrificed and suffered for me on _som__e_ levels, but I've never seen that struggle in his actions. He's always been entirely satisfied with our life together. It amazes me that he can love me so fully. I once loved him the same, but now I fight to hide the fragmented gleam in my eyes. Now, I feel as though I'm constantly fretting to maintain a façade, and that's wrong. It's wrong to do this to Harry, to myself, and especially to our daughter.

When my daughter was first conceived, the emptiness I had experienced before Harry was a long-forgotten thing of the past. I might even say it felt as if it had never even existed at all, as if it simply couldn't exist. The brightness in my life was so stunning that darkness seemed like a work of fiction. Lily filled in every little crack and gave me the full extent of what I needed to be the happiest I could ever possibly be. Lily sealed us tight, making me wholeheartedly believe that the warmth I felt would never fade.

It did though.

I buried this photo, this man, these memories. I buried it deep when Harry came to me. I used to carry it on my person everywhere I went. I wasn't sure if I was looking for him and perhaps that photo was reference or if I just enjoyed holding on to it, even if I knew I never intended to insert myself into his life again. In any case, I could not let the photo go. It was the last thread tying me to the physical world anymore. I hate to say this, but Draco Malfoy was the only thing that kept me from committing suicide, but he was also the main reason I was miserable enough to entertain the idea so freely in the first place. I felt like I had places to be, places beyond this life and this world. I felt like I had a paradise of peace waiting for me, like all I needed was the strength to pass on to finally feel settled in my soul. Harry came and saved me from those dangerous thoughts though, and I buried Draco away.

It was dangerous, and frankly stupid, to stick him in a forgotten corner to collect dust. I should have thrown him out, torn him to pieces, burned him to ashes, because I rediscovered him about two and a half years after my daughter's birth. I tried shoving him away, but the cycle had been instantly rebuilt and he slowly wormed his way back into my heart. With how much I had grown to truly love Harry, I never thought the comparison would ever be necessary. Somehow, though, I found myself comparing the two in my head. I found myself counting tallies and beginning to miss a man who had never even been mine to lose in the first place. Next thing I knew, my heart was at total war.

I returned to that photo more than I should have. It was suddenly very disappointing to look into Harry's eyes and not see the grayish blue I so longed for. It was saddening to run my fingers through a mop of hair thicker and courser than I remembered it to be, and then to realize that I was recalling a man from memory and neglecting the one of the present moment. I began living my life in the past and modeling it around those memories of Draco. That, of course, resulted in pure disappointment, seeing as I hadn't married Draco and this life would never be what I wanted if I kept on wishing that it wasn't what it already was. Every night I stayed up to love a man I could not touch, but every morning I woke to kiss the lips of a husband I could not keep my heart from. The color was wrong, but the emotion in Harry's eyes was spot on and he captured me in a haze of overwhelming love at every glance.

What am I even missing? That's the question I'm still trying to unravel. What could Draco possibly give me that Harry can't? Harry touched me in all the right ways from the very beginning. He has always made every strand of hair on my body stand on end with just a single wisp of breath. He brings my heart to a pounding race with just one searing gaze. He turns me into a pile of mush with just a slight change in the tone of his voice. He has satisfied me in ways that I don't think Draco could have ever even touched upon. Harry has loved me fiercely and his commitment has never waned. He's never buckled, never strayed, not once, not even in the middle of the night to miss a woman from years ago.

_So why_? Why do I feel like I'm missing something? I love my husband. So, then, why does it feel so hard to experience that wholly?

These are questions I have asked myself for over two years now. I didn't start off feeling so strongly about Draco. I could shut him off and forget him like a bad taste in my mouth for days, even weeks, at a time. I've realized, though, that it's magnified over time and he's become harder to turn away, and there's a certain day on which it all seems to explode with intensity. On this day two years ago, I cried over Draco for the first time in years. It was, in all, an overly emotional day. I had to lie and tell Harry it was just a sentimental attachment to our daughter that made me act that way. After all, it was her birthday. After that, though, the next year proved to be more difficult and Draco was not so easy to ignore. Last year's birthday was better. I didn't cry, but I had to hide away because there was just no way to banish to emotion from my eyes. I didn't want Harry to question me for fear that I wouldn't be able to devise a decent reply. The year between then and now was even harder still to brave. Today, I've unraveled the art of simply shutting off. The emotions are so strong on this day that all I can do to cope is just switch off entirely.

I don't worry about Harry's reaction to it all because I'm fairly sure I know where his mind will go. He's noticed these moods coming on and he's likened them to depression. He'll assume that I'm experiencing a prolonged form of the baby blues. I'm not though. I never experienced postpartum depression. How could I? Between Harry, Lily, and myself, life was perfect. That's gotta be obvious with how joyous and delighted I was in Lily's first two years of life, but he'll be griping for an explanation to the way I've been acting so he'll run with the first logical excuse he can find. I won't tell him otherwise. I'll just let him think it's so and he'll spend the day gently comforting me as he tries to make up for my lack in enthusiasm.

And I'll blandly take part. It'll hurt me, I'm sure, to watch them experience life so vibrantly together. I'll remember when we were a unit, when we experienced the joys of life together, when our laughter was like a unified chorus of perfected harmony. I won't be able to participate though. No, opening myself up to any emotion is opening myself up to all. One moment will be the quirk of a smirk at something Lily has just said, and then the next will be an onslaught of tears. I can't risk that. It's better to just be empty.

This day strikes me more sharply in the heart every year. Every year Lily grows older is a reminder of the life I chose and the man I didn't end up with. Every year is 365 days spent living a life that I'm not sure I should have ever committed to in the first place. The more I think these thoughts, the more they hurt me. On one hand, they're too sickeningly true. On the other, they're so entirely not. Because I want my life. I want my husband and I want my daughter. I love them with a deep, deep passion. How can I feel such opposing things simultaneously? How can I wish them closer and will them away at the same time?

It's as this question tears at my insides that Harry stirs in his sleep. I quickly shove the photo of Draco into a small envelope and seal it with a tap of my wand before shoving it back into the pages of the book I retrieved it from. I can tell by the tone of his voice as he softly grumbles that Harry is not quite awake yet, but he's on the delicate precipice of waking at any moment. I look over my shoulder at the clock sitting on the nightstand farthest from the door, which is on my side of the bed. I'm surprised to see that it's 5 in the morning. Time passed far more quickly than I could recognize. A glance at the curtained window to the left of the nightstand assures me that it's already dawn.

I stand from my seated place at the base of our floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, which is opposite our queen-sized bed, and move toward my nightstand. I have to be extra quiet because Harry is a light sleeper when he's having one of his more unsettling dreams. He's been known to wake at even the slightest of creaks with his wand poised menacingly. I'm up every night doing this same pathetic ritual with Draco's photo though, so I've gotten pretty good at creeping around silently. I set my wand beside my digital clock and carefully crawl into my space beneath the covers.

Once I've mostly settled in, I pause to brace my weight on my left elbow and look at Harry's face. His expression is troubled, his brows furrowed and his lips tense. His head jerks slightly and he grumbles softly again. My love for him mixes with a thousand other things and causes a heaviness to settle in my chest. As much as I'd like to leave him be and catch what sleep I can before he wakes, I don't like the way his dreams are troubling him.

"Harry," I whisper, reaching my free hand over to gently cup and caress his face. "Harry, wake up."

His eyes flutter before he wakes with a start and gasps, making my heart leap and my hand retract automatically. He searches my face for some sense of familiarity, as if he doesn't know me at all. This has happened before. His dreams often leave him confused.

"Harry, sweetie, it's me. It's Pansy, your wife," I explain.

He nods and rasps, "I know." The expression on his face doesn't clear though. He's still looking at me with this utterly befuddled expression.

I begin to recognize my mistake. I should have let him sleep. I'm not functioning on nearly enough rest to step into the vacant façade I'll need to get through this day yet. I'm not ready to be emotionless. I know he'll let me sleep in if I express my exhaustion, but that doesn't save me from this moment right now. I just have to hope that I can express the right emotions in this moment. I'm pleased to find that when I speak, I use a tone that fits the situation.

"What's wrong?" I ask, worried by his unwavering expression.

His reply doesn't come quickly, but he does eventually shake his head slowly and avert his gaze. "Nothing," he murmurs, staring into space with an even more intent expression. "Just... bad dream..."

I have to draw some bold lines between my emotions, to define what's for Harry and what goes more toward Draco, so it takes me a second to attach to the proper things before I can speak again.

"Harry," I murmur softly, re-positioning my weight-bearing arm so that my head can rest in my hand. I reach out with my free hand and cup his cheek again, turning his face so that our eyes can meet. I can only hope the right emotions are swirling in my eyes. "Talk to me," I urge.

He takes a short moment to assess the look in my eyes before shaking his head and dismissively flicking a wrist. "It's nothing," he reassures. He lifts his hand to loosely wrap around my wrist, the one connected to the hand on his cheek, and admiringly strokes down my arm. He smiles at me and though his lips lift only slightly at the corners, as if heavy, a warmth blooms in his eyes that fills me to the core from the toes up. "It's gone already."

I don't know why, but this lingering string of tension remains behind. I try to smile back nonetheless, but I feel like it comes out as a grimace. Insecure, I quickly abandon the smile and move to hide my face in the crook of his neck. He accommodates and shifts his arm so that it's snaked under my neck and wrapped around my shoulders. I snuggle in close and drop my arm from his face to hug his torso instead, fighting the thought that it should be a different size and shape. At this point, I'm not sure if this is an act of affection or a need to be out of the line of those loving eyes.

Harry understands though, more than I ever thought he could. "Pansy," he murmurs.

I hum softly in acknowledgement, but a silence blooms between us. I would think he had never spoken at all if the silence wasn't so thick and heavy that it seemed to screech beneath the weight of what he's obviously not sure he's ready to say. My heart jumps to my throat and I know, I just _know_, that nothing good can come of what's about to leave his mouth.

"Do you remember our marriage day?"

It's obviously not what I'm expecting him to say, but I know this tactic. He's just trying to be careful in his approach to a delicate topic. That's so very Harry. He can be such a timid and gentle soul that he'll take weeks trying to work out how to properly word a thought. I don't want to pressure him into divulging before he's ready—part of me wants to avoid it altogether—so I indulge this side topic, even if it causes more conflict in my heart.

"Of course," is my answer.

"How did you feel?" Harry asks.

I pause, perhaps a moment too long, to think a thought that I know I cannot be thinking in this moment. Draco has to go. He has to _go_. I try to separate my emotions, as they've crept together in a confusing mix again, but it takes me longer than is comfortable for Harry to wait and I can feel that.

"Content," I finally say. "I felt at peace," I add carefully, "like I truly belonged somewhere again."

Harry shifts. I'm not sure if it's out of discomfort or if he's trying to get more comfortable. I can feel the tension continuing to build, his hesitation to speak becoming thicker and thicker. I close my eyes and try to be entirely present in this moment, but my heart just can't commit. It keeps splitting off to wander around another man. Harry lets out a sharp huff against my hair and the next words he speaks are choked by the tightness in his throat.

"And Lily?" he murmurs so softly that he could be breathing, so softly, in fact, that he's almost drowned out by the nervous thrum of my heart. Or is that his pulse? I can feel his lips moving against my hair though, assuring me that, yes, he's definitely speaking. "How did you feel when she was born?"

"Complete, " I answer, maybe a beat or two too quickly.

By now, I'm feeling panicky about what he might be leading up to. When I'm face to face with this dense uncertainty, I can only guess at where we're headed. I realize how devastated I would be if Harry was in my position though. If he loved another, I would be torn to shreds. This just reminds me of how cruel I am to be in the place I'm in. And then I have a thought.

Does he know? _Could_ he know? I suddenly start to fear that I am utterly transparent to him, that he can see straight through me. I pull back and look into his eyes, trying to see through him, to make him the transparent one. There's a tortured quality that I can't miss and it makes me sick, nauseated to the core.

"Harry..."

I don't know if I'm prompting him, or if I even want him to speak at all. I just trail off, trying to decide how willing I am to travel this path any further. I'm unsure of whether I should turn away. I feel like it's time for me to work on shutting off or else I'll say something I'll regret. I'm afraid I'll break my husband's heart, and he seems in too fragile a mood already for me to be confused about what to say to him. I want to tear my eyes away, to recoil, but he has me trapped in his gaze. It seems like, for a moment, we're both paralyzed by each other. He is, as always, quicker to recover than me though.

"Pansy," he says, not bothering to swallow the emotion in his throat but managing to speak through it, "when I saw you walking down the aisle, every doubt I'd ever felt about life or love was decimated."

My heart constricts at his romanticism. I should be melted by these words, but they cause me pain and bring prickling tears to my eyes. I don't fondly remember his face as I moved toward him. I have this twisted memory of how much he differed from Draco, of how wrong he looked standing up there waiting for me.

"I understood that you were my chance at peace," he goes on, not at all oblivious to my emotional response, "so I gave up all that I'd been holding on to."

I get the implication. Why haven't I done the same with letting go? Where has my elation gone? Why is he the only one left recalling fond memories? The tension builds to an almost unbearable high and I'm so afraid of what he'll say next, but I need to hear it. How will he say it? How will I respond?

"If you love another..." There's a slight pause, in which his hand raises and gently touches my cheek. I lean in to the touch a moment too late, once his hand has already retreated. "—I won't be angry," he finishes.

That's a lie, I think. If I love another, he'll be furious. He'll be so blindingly furious that his rage will blur into his pain. His anger will meld with suffering and he'll be confused by it all. He won't know if he still loves me or not. He won't know if he wants to stay or leave. He won't know what to do with me, or if he can ever look at me again. I fear he'll be so furious that even fury will be too complicated to decode. And where will that leave him, feeling everything so intensely that he feels nothing at all, exactly where I am now, living a life he would rather die than lead, believing that there are other places for him to be, believing that he's trapped by his own vitality?

"I was never meant to be a simple man," Harry says, as if that's to explain why I've done what I've done, "and if that's not the man you want..."

"Stop," I interject with a severity that surprises even me.

I suppose it's the idea he's got in his head that makes me react that way. Despite the war I've felt for far too long now, I'm appalled at where he's going with this. No, that's not it exactly. I can't deny where he's going, but I _must_ deny how he's getting there. It's absolutely not him or the life he's lead or the life he's given to me that's brought me to this crossroad, and he simply can't think that it is. He tries to decode the complexion of my eyes. He can see everything swirling into one, but there's a vital piece missing. And we both know that we could brave anything together, as long as we have that piece, as long as we still have love.

He's looking at me with these battered and beaten eyes and I know what he's thinking. Despite how deeply I wish to tell him that he's wrong, we both know he's right and I'm not willing to risk parting my lips and saying the wrong thing. I've just torn us from all the progress we've made together and thrown us back to square one, back to when we'd experienced everything but a requisition of love. And it's not the truths he's unearthing that hurt him. No, it's the silence I refuse to break.

"You're the woman I met years ago again," he informs. I'm not sure if that's a jab or a sad expression. "You're empty like she was. I thought we'd done so much together, but it's like you never experienced any of it."

I'm still speechless. I can see that he's dying for me to just say something, anything. I know it's not a refusal he's looking for. He's likely been digesting this truth for a long time now and accepting it for what it is. What he wants from me is regret, repentance, a declaration of love. He just wants to believe that I still love him, that I'm worth the torture he's been putting himself through, but I'm not sure that I am. I'm not sure I'm ready to dismiss Draco so fully, so I don't say anything at all.

My eyes drift away and I retreat into myself. I turn and pull my legs up to my chest, hugging them loosely. There's a long moment, in which Harry simply watches me, before I let myself simply flop over on the mattress. My back is turned to him and I just lay in the fetal position staring into space. I can't really recognize any of the things passing through me as my own emotions. It's like I'm looking at it from a third person point of view. It's like it's not even my emotion but, rather, someone else's struggle and I'm no one. I'm nothing. I'm the void, purely empty.

"If you love another, you should find him and be happy again," Harry says. "Because you're obviously not happy, Pansy."

The words travel softly to my ear. I pinpoint every detail—what they mean, how they're spoken, the lips that plucked up the courage to speak them—and I grapple with them. I feel the pressure of his fingers on my forearm and it's anchoring me into reality, keeping me from floating away further into myself and forcing me to acknowledge his pain. I feel his forehead pressing into my shoulder-blade in defeat, his breath blazing broken and shaky trails across my back. I feel his energy seeping into my body with a heavy presence and ripping me from the safe cocoon I've spun around myself, but I realize that I'm not safe in here at all. I can never be safe again, not without Harry, not without his embrace. He's tried, _been trying_, to wrap me up in his being, but I keep turning my back. I keep choosing to suffer, and this leads me right to the doorstep of a realization that Harry must have made years ago.

Fate doesn't come at you like a freight train, showing the direct path to your future. It doesn't steer you down a one-way street. You just have to stumble along blindly until you find the destination. All along I thought that my destiny would punch me in the face and scream "this is where you belong", but I was absolutely wrong. Fate is not there to make my decisions for me. I have to do that part on my own. I have to let go of one man to make room for the other, and no one is gonna force me to do that but myself. Harry had done it, and not just because he was so used to making hard choices. He did it because he understood something about life that I'm just now getting, something he surely tried but couldn't teach me. Happiness is not given. It's chosen. Harry, whose entire life has been one event after another, believed in us and made the hard choice of committing to a woman who could easily let him down.

And I have, haven't I? I've already chosen to let another man tear us apart. I've thrown Harry aside, as if everything he'd ever given me was meaningless. He's right. I'm acting as if I was never a part of all that we'd experienced up until now, as if I wasn't there for the highs, as if I hadn't too surged past the lows. I've knocked him down, given him reason to hurt, to leave. I've been causing us both all this strife because I haven't been able to make a solid decision. I've been waiting for some other force out there that doesn't exist to seal up my cracks, to tie up my loose ends and give me peace. I realize now, though, that peace is nothing a man can give me. Peace comes from the choice, from the act of choosing.

All this anxiety about rejecting Draco has been for naught. Draco is nothing to be disregarded. I loved him for a period of time, and that's okay. It's part of me, part of what made me so ready to accept Harry when he came along. I love Harry the same, in a way that I do not, and should never, feel ashamed of. But neither of them can give me happiness, and it's believing that they ever could that's led me to this point. The reason I was ever so happy with Harry was not necessarily because of Harry himself but, rather, because I chose to immerse myself in him completely. It was only when I poked my head out and started scouting the horizon that indecision began to tear down my castle brick by brick.

So what is it that I think Draco could give me that Harry can't?

The answer is clear to me. Nothing, nothing at all. Neither man could give me more than the other. It's the idea that I might be missing out on something that's knocked me off of my feet, but Harry has already given me all that I could ever need. I'm in love with my husband. Dear god, I am so in love with my husband that I can't breathe! I recognize that's probably because I'm crying heavily. I expect to come out of my self-realization to feel Harry comforting me, but I don't. I'm alone on the bed and I look over my shoulder in confusion. He's been there at my back through this conflict without falter until now. The fear that I've tortured him one too many times rushes through me. What if he's decided enough is enough and chosen to leave? I know he has to be somewhere in the house and that he hasn't physically left, but I'm afraid he's metaphorically out of reach.

"Harry!" I call out. No response. "Harry!" I all but scream, jumping from the bed to make a metaphorical and physical change.

Harry rushes out of our master bathroom just as I'm about to enter with a toothbrush sticking out of his mouth and a look of worry on his face. "What?" he says loudly, the word muddled by the toothbrush.

I just embrace him and squeeze tightly. I don't know what to say or how to say it. To express myself fully, I'd first have to admit my mistakes. I'd first have to utter the name of my conflict aloud for the first time in a very long time. I'd have to face what I've refused to face, and that's scary. I think he understands this because he doesn't demand anything. He just hugs me and rubs my back, and I know he can feel the love I can't articulate.

After a moment that doesn't last nearly long enough for me, we're interrupted. The door swings open and Lily walks in. Her eyes, though still quite sleepy, are full of worry. I pull away enough to look at her and she asks, "Mommy, why are you yelling?"

I smile at her and reply, "I didn't know where Daddy was is all Nothing to worry about though, because he's right here."

"Oh," Lily replies softly, and then she rubs her eyes and yawns. "I'm still sleepy, so can you be quieter please?"

It tickles me how simple children can be and I giggle at her response, looking back at Harry with a light in my eyes that he returns. I know he's glad to see this missed air about me.

"You know, I'm pretty tired too," I tell Lily. "Why don't you crawl back into bed with me?"

Lily nods sleepily and grabs my hand to lead me away from her father. I look back, unsure if I'm ready to detach from him. In the moment that I hesitate to go, as if turning away will break the frailty between us, he reassures me with a gentle touch. His hand runs down my arm and he pulls my hand free from his waist. He squeezes and smiles at me surely, always the quicker one to recover. I'm so used to walking on eggshells that I can't acclimate so quickly to a reinforced floor, but there's a look of confidence and surety in his eyes that promises me no amount of shaking and shambling could tear us down. It's amazing how easily I can turn away after that, without any hesitation remaining. It's so natural and easy to trust him.

As I turn to follow Lily, I feel this sense of freedom that I haven't felt since first meeting Harry. I glance to the bookshelf as we climb into bed and my eyes land on the book that hides my struggle, and I make one last realization. As ethereal as Draco's beauty was, he never evoked these emotions that Harry instills in me. When I touch Harry, I feel warmth. It's sad to say, but touching Draco was more like touching a corpse. He was more like an entity that was never meant to be tarnished to me. I held him up by such high standards that I could have never reached him. I assigned him a price that I knew I would never be able to pay. And as terrible as it sounds, Harry was never worth anything. Harry was free, but that made him worth so much more than even life to me.

As far as value goes, I think that the most precious things in life can't be priced. They aren't things that you can have but, rather, things that are to be simply appreciated. That's the issue. I wanted Draco, to have him, but Harry... Harry was never a thing to be had for me. He was an experience. And even though Draco might have seemed more substantial to me, he was really nothing at all. Because things get old and they break and they wither away, but experiences are permanent. Experiences are the one thing you never have and, yet, the only thing you can ever truly have at all. And despite this conflict between having and not having, you don't actually feel conflicted at all. In fact, you feel more fulfilled than fulfillment has ever seemed it could be.

Draco Malfoy had caged me, but Harry Potter set me free. And despite all this freedom, I don't feel like there's anywhere else for me to struggle to be.


End file.
